


you don't need treats, you don't need tricks

by myrmidryad



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Kinda, M/M, shut up I have to tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:11:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmidryad/pseuds/myrmidryad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The landlady tells Enjolras about the ghost as she shows him the apartment. “He’s been dead eleven years now, and we’ve never had a single problem. I’m of the belief that unless a ghost turns hostile, there’s no point in exorcising it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't need treats, you don't need tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Ghosting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAhUScrPC7Y) by Mother Mother, which inspired this whole fic. I beg you to listen to it, because it's gorgeous and very relevant. I was also inspired by the way I remember ghosts being portrayed in the book _Her Fearful Symmetry_ by Audrey Niffenegger.

The landlady tells Enjolras about the ghost as she shows him the apartment. “He’s been dead eleven years now, and we’ve never had a single problem. I’m of the belief that unless a ghost turns hostile, there’s no point in exorcising it.” She gives him a small smile, which he returns. Hers widens, approving, and she opens the door to the bedroom. “Bed, desk, wardrobe, everything as you saw on the website, and all in good condition. There’s wear and tear on a few items, of course, but no real damage.”

Outside, once they’re out of the ghost’s range (it’s apparently limited to the apartment), Enjolras asks about any measures he might need to go to in order to cohabit peacefully with it. “Oh, he’s fine,” the landlady says, waving a hand. “The previous residents offered him a few things, and he apparently prefers alcohol over anything else. But really, he’s very docile. Even on Halloween, no manifestations, no problems with the appliances. The occasional cold spot, of course, but that’s expected.”

Enjolras takes the apartment – a ghost brings the rent down. The heating works fine against the November cold, and that’s really all he cares about. This apartment is larger than his last, but he’s been looking for more space. The kitchen and living room are one large area, lino against carpet, and there’s a small bathroom next to his bedroom. And despite the ghost, there’s nothing.

For weeks, nothing. Enjolras leaves out a glass of wine overnight, and comes out in the morning to find it untouched. He shrugs and pours it down the sink before sitting down to work. Freelance researcher and journalist suits him as a job title, especially at this time of the year when he’s loathe to leave his cosy new apartment for any longer than necessary.

 

Grantaire watches his new roommate from odd angles. The ceiling, under the coffee table, peeking over doorjambs. It’s taken him a while to figure out the man’s name – Enjolras. He’s in his twenties, works from home, and is Productive. Up at seven every day, out several evenings a week (probably to see friends), never indulgent in anything.

Enjolras talks to his friends on his mobile phone with a voice warm and brash by turns. He cooks the same meals over and over, alternating them, but never trying anything new. He spends hours on his laptop, either at his desk in his bedroom or on the sofa, and Grantaire watches his expressions with childlike curiosity.

Enjolras is beautiful. Death has a way of putting living prejudices into perspective, so Grantaire has long accepted his desires for men, and he stares at Enjolras without inhibition. Enjolras can’t see him, after all. Grantaire isn’t even human shaped, really. He’s just a wisp of memory and thought and occasionally manifested energy. Sometimes he can’t even hear what Enjolras is saying, can’t distinguish the words that pour from his perfect lips, but he soaks in the tone of his voice, curling up under the table or on the bed and dozing.

With nothing else to think of, Grantaire thinks of Enjolras. He jumps awake every time Enjolras returns, and learns his routines by heart. When Enjolras looks for his keys, Grantaire pushes them into view. When the fruit Enjolras leaves out begins to turn, Grantaire chills the air around it to keep it fresh. He makes sure the smoke alarm doesn’t go off when Enjolras burns his toast, and keeps the pipes unblocked. If Enjolras has a headache, Grantaire will push the painkillers out of the cabinet in the bathroom. Enjolras doesn’t seem to mind. Occasionally he’ll say, “Thanks, ghost,” under his breath, and Grantaire will puff up with pride.

There are other things he sees too. People act freely in the privacy of their apartments, and Grantaire’s careful not to indicate his presence in any way at all when Enjolras clearly doesn’t want to be disturbed. He cries sometimes in front of his laptop, at some news story or another, or at something one of his friends has told him. Angry, frustrated tears. And he sings to himself in the shower, and when he cooks. His voice is fair, but not excellent. And at least once every three or four days he’ll masturbate, either in the shower or bedroom. He doesn’t seem to read or watch any porn Grantaire can see, so he has no idea what Enjolras is thinking of when he closes his eyes and bites his lips and arches his back as he comes.

Grantaire will never do these living things again – never sing, cook, cry, orgasm – so he watches Enjolras go through these motions with fascination. His warmth in the apartment is far preferable to the dull cold of his absence. The last two people who lived here were a couple, and for the most part Grantaire stayed out of their way. Enjolras is different. He leaves out fewer offerings, but he starts to be freer with his thanks when Grantaire helps him. Sometimes he’ll even talk out loud, reading the articles he’s written to make sure they sound good.

But Christmas comes, and he seems to forget Grantaire completely. Some of his friends come over, and their talking exhausts Grantaire. He hides in Enjolras’ room, tucked inside the drawer of his bedside table, the small space containing and comforting.

On Christmas, Enjolras leaves, and doesn’t return for another day after that. Grantaire tries to be good, but his agitation chills the room. Enjolras doesn’t even notice. For New Year, he buys food, and for a while Grantaire hopes he’ll stay. The previous tenants hosted a party each year, and perhaps Enjolras will do that? But then he takes the food with him when he leaves, and Grantaire realises he’s gone to a party somewhere else.

A New Year’s party. With his friends. Where someone will kiss him at midnight, and they’ll drink and laugh and have fun inside in the warmth, surrounded by each other and so, so happy –

Grantaire remembers his own last New Year, and he shrinks into himself and shudders, shakes, shivers – before exploding outwards.

 

“So he actually touches you sometimes?” Jehan is practically bouncing, and Enjolras is just a little too hungover for this, but he smiles anyway as he lets them into his building.

“I think that’s what it is. He can tell when I have headaches, and he pushes the medicine onto the floor and I get this coldness around my head? Mostly on my temples.”

“That’s so sweet,” Jehan gushes, falling in behind him as Enjolras leads the way up the narrow stairwell. “Maybe this ghost had a boyfriend who looked just like you or something. Or maybe he really wants to be friends – it’s lonely being a ghost, my granny told me.”

Enjolras lets Jehan’s talk wash over him as they climb up to the fifth floor. He jerks awake when he opens the door to his apartment and sees the devastation inside. “Oh my god.”

“Shit, have you been robbed?” Jehan turns serious. “Enjolras, check, is anything missing?”

Enjolras drifts in, eyes wide. The TV is on the floor, his laptop in the corner of the room, all the appliances seem to be there, if not in the expected places. The sofa’s been tipped over completely, the cushions thrown around. Anything he left on the counters has been swept off onto the floor. The two pictures he’d hung up are off their hooks, one in the sink and the other under the table the TV usually stands on.

“Everything’s here,” he mutters, going to check his bedroom and the bathroom as well. The things in there are a little disturbed, like someone’s gone through them looking for something in a hurry, but it isn’t the complete mess of the living room and kitchen.

The ghost. Enjolras’ anger flares the second he realises it, and Jehan has to practically wrestle the phone out of his hand to stop him calling the landlady. “It’s New Year’s Day,” he reminds Enjolras. “You are not calling out your landlady on New Year’s Day.”

“Well what am I supposed to do about this?” Enjolras waves a hand at the mess, furious. “Call a shade myself?”

The temperature drops noticeably, and Enjolras glares around the room. Jehan touches his arm. “Were you given any information about him? Like a file or a folder?”

“An email attachment. I skimmed it.” The temperature drops again, and Enjolras fights the urge to throw something. Fucking _ghosts_. He should’ve just steeled himself to pay more rent on a ghost-free apartment.

“Can you get it on your phone?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go outside then.” Jehan herds him out, and they go to sit in the café a couple of doors down the street. Once he reads the attachment properly, Enjolras realises almost immediately what prompted the ghost to act out so much.

“He died on New Year,” Jehan sighs, reading over his shoulder. “That’s really sad. Of alcohol poisoning as well.”

“He can’t have freaked out like this with any of the previous tenants though.” Enjolras gulps his coffee, still pissed off. The last thing he wanted to do this morning was clean up his apartment. “Why with me?”

“Why don’t we ask him?”

“Jehan…”

“Go on, please? It’s always better to do it yourself than go to a shade for these little personal hauntings.”

“That is literally the opposite of everything we’re told.”

“I’ve had plenty of experience,” Jehan sings. “And I’m free, and willing to help you clean your apartment?”

Enjolras groans. “Fine. Coffee first, then you can communicate with my ghost.”

“Grantaire,” Jehan says firmly. “At least until he gives us something else to call him. No anti-dead prejudice around me, please.” Jehan’s grandmother had died long before he was born, but she’d raised him as much as his living parents. Enjolras knows when to pick his battles. Most of the time.

It comes as no surprise to him that Jehan carries a tiny fold-out Ouija board on his person, and they clear a space in the centre of the wreckage of his living room to sit on the floor opposite each other. “Grantaire?” Jehan calls. “If you’re there, we’d really appreciate it if you could communicate with us.”

“Regarding the tip you made of my apartment,” Enjolras mutters, rolling his eyes when Jehan gives him an unimpressed look. “I’m not pandering to a ghost.”

“My apologies on behalf of your hungover roommate,” Jehan tells the empty room, glaring at Enjolras. “He lost two drinking games last night.”

Enjolras massages his temples. “I hate you.”

“No you – oh! Look!”

Enjolras looks. The tiny counter on the board is moving, and Jehan is tapping the letters into his phone as the counter stops on them. After a minute, Enjolras doesn’t need Jehan to tell him what the ghost is saying – the counter is spelling out ‘sorry’ on repeat.

“I get it,” he says shortly, and the counter shudders and halts. “I just don’t get why.”

Jehan closes his eyes when the counter doesn’t move. “I think he’s upset,” he murmurs. “Ashamed?” Enjolras sees the counter slide silently over to ‘yes’. “I don’t think he meant to do it, Enjolras. He just got upset. Put yourself in his shoes for a minute.”

Enjolras sighs, but looks around the room and imagines dying on New Year’s Eve. Of alcohol poisoning – Grantaire must have been a sad, lonely person to have a death like that. “But why trash the place now?” he asks the room. “You’ve never done this before, or I would’ve been told about it.”

“Oh!” Jehan stares at something Enjolras can’t see, then sighs. “I think I saw him for a second. Never mind, look.” The counter on the board is moving again, but all Grantaire says through it is ‘sorry’. A pause is followed by a different string of letters. Enjolras can’t tell what Grantaire’s saying until Jehan reads from his phone. “I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”

It’s as much as they get from him. Jehan stays until Enjolras’ apartment is tidy again, and for a few days Enjolras is hyper aware of anything that might be ghostly activity before settling into his routine again. He’s had plenty of time to get used to having a ghost in the apartment. As long as it doesn’t happen again, he won’t call the landlady, or a shade.

 

Were he alive, Grantaire would curl into a ball and beg for forgiveness. As it is, he doubles his efforts to be good. He cleans where he can – no dirt builds up in the cutlery draw, no cobwebs appear in the corners of any room, no hair clogs the drain – and tidies what he can as well. Enjolras will leave his plate on the coffee table before going to bed, and by morning Grantaire will have moved it to the sink. He can’t wash anything – just moving things tires him out – but he tries.

He won’t stop trying. He fucked up, now he has to make up for it.

It’s not the threat of exorcism that motivates him. He just wants Enjolras’ forgiveness and approval. He wants so badly to be useful. He wants so badly to be noticed.

Enjolras comes back from the bathroom one evening and sighs when he sees that Grantaire’s straightened his pens into a neat line in his absence. “You don’t have to do that.”

Grantaire sinks into a puddle under the table and aches quietly. Enjolras doesn’t want him there. Enjolras tolerates his presence at best. Enjolras hates him.

Enjolras sits and touches the edge of one pen. Grantaire ordered them by colour – Enjolras likes to underline things in the papers he reads, and he has coloured fineliners for the purpose. “Thank you,” he says softly, and Grantaire floats to the ceiling and brightens the bulb for a couple of seconds. It makes Enjolras smile, and Grantaire’s ache vanishes as if it was never there.

 

“Grantaire?” Enjolras leans against the kitchen counter and looks around uncertainly. “Um. Do something if you’re there?”

The lights under the cabinets flicker, and Enjolras nods. “Okay, thanks. I, um. I need to have some people over here, and I wanted to check if you’re okay with that? I’m in a sort of society, and we’ve been evicted from the place we usually meet. It’s bullshit, of course, but there’s nothing we can do about it.” He’s still spitting fire about that, if he’s honest. Rowdy on occasion they might have been, but it appears that they’ve been banned from congregating in any of the cafés or pubs. It’s blatant censorship and oppression, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Yet, anyway.

“I wanted to see if you were okay with it,” he goes on. “I know I’ve had friends over before, but this will be different – quite loud, probably crowded. It’s the best location for all of us to meet, geographically speaking, but I won’t do it if it’ll stress you out.”

The lights flicker again, then brighten. Enjolras can’t help smiling. “It’s a neat trick, but I can’t interpret an answer out of it.” They flicker again, and Enjolras sighs. “Okay, brighten for yes, dim for no. Are you okay with me holding meetings here?” The lights flicker, then brighten. “Great. Will you be okay?” They brighten again, and the air around Enjolras goes warm. He thinks Grantaire’s pleased to be asked, and he smiles. “Okay. Thanks, Grantaire.” The light in the living room starts to swing from side to side, the bulb getting brighter, brighter – till it blows, and something rushes past Enjolras’ ear. The toaster shivers, and Enjolras can’t help laughing. 

“It’s fine,” he grins, grabbing a chair to get to the tops of the cabinets. “I’m pretty sure I have spare bulbs.”

He’s half-expecting another display like that when the others come over, but Grantaire makes himself scarce. He reappears afterwards, helping Enjolras to tidy up – only ever when his back is turned, so he never actually sees anything move or float – but as soon as people arrive, he vanishes. Enjolras suspects he hides in the bedroom.

The meetings continue, and after a while Grantaire overcomes his apparent shyness. Cosette and Jehan sense him best, so he hides from them the most, but if asked for his opinion he’ll flicker the lights or rustle the curtains.

Enjolras leaves his laptop on when he leaves now, because Grantaire has figured out how to play music on it and likes listening to it. Sometimes late at night, Grantaire will minimise the windows to try and get Enjolras to go to bed, and it should be annoying, but it just makes Enjolras smile.

According to the email the landlady sent him when he agreed to move in, Grantaire was twenty eight when he died in 2002. There’s no photo or mention of any family or friends. If Grantaire had been born in a different time, perhaps they would have been living friends. Enjolras likes to think so.

Sometimes Grantaire will type smiley faces after whatever Enjolras has written, and he’ll boil the kettle when Enjolras gets up in the morning so it’ll be ready for coffee as soon as he goes into the kitchen. When a summer heatwave hits, Grantaire keeps the apartment cool. Enjolras wishes he could do more in return than leave out glasses of wine overnight. They appear untouched each morning, but when he tries to drink one of them one day, he has to spit it out because the flavour has changed completely. Whatever Grantaire does to it leaves the wine bitter and vile to the taste.

Grantaire doesn’t talk back when Enjolras talks to him, which he does more and more these days, but his moods sometimes permeate the room. Amusement when Enjolras tells him about the antics of his friends (their friends, as he’s started to think of them), pity and sadness when Enjolras mentions the latest crackdowns in the nation’s security and the growing strain felt by those with less or no disposable income. Fear when Enjolras turns angry.

He even helps with Enjolras’ work, proofreading his articles and making little adjustments on the laptop. He starts to leave comments – ‘too violent’ ‘break up sentences more’ ‘insert anecdote?’ – but he still won’t use the laptop to communicate properly. When Enjolras asks why, Grantaire leaves a keysmash and dims the screen’s brightness.

Halloween approaches, slowly on the horizon, and then appearing at the end of the week. Enjolras panics and doesn’t eat the evening he comes home with the question. “Grantaire?” The lights brighten – he’s been getting better at that. Enjolras leans against the kitchen counter and picks at the ends of his sleeves. “It’s Halloween next week. I didn’t know if you knew.” No response. Enjolras takes a deep breath. “I’d like to meet you. Properly.” Nothing. His heart sinks. “I just thought that maybe…well, we’re friends, aren’t we? I thought we were, are, and I’d like to talk to you, really talk to you. If you want to, that is.”

The lights flicker, just a little at first, and then more violently. Enjolras shrinks against the counter, and flinches when the bulbs blow, the apartment falling into darkness.

 

Grantaire watches Enjolras sleep from the ceiling. He can’t manifest on Halloween. He’s made a list of reasons why, though they keep muddling out of order when he tries to remember them. Which is one of the reasons, actually – he’s not who he was when he was alive. His memories have faded with time, and he remembers only fragments of his childhood, his youth, his brief stint as an adult. The time before his death is clearest, which just hurts because it was the time he was most miserable.

What was he good at? What was his favourite food? What did he like to wear? Where did he go? Who were his friends? (Did he have any friends?)

The answers have vanished, and the shame sends Grantaire spiralling to the corner of the room to hide.

Another reason: he may not remember much, but he remembers how ugly he was. He’d been told so often enough, and he remembers smashing the mirrors in this apartment and cutting his hands on the pieces, drunk and crying and lonely beyond words. Sad, pathetic, friendless, and ugly. He’s inflicted himself on Enjolras enough as it is. And he couldn’t bear to see disappointment on Enjolras’ face.

Also, he’s dead, and Enjolras is alive. Their relationship can’t go further than what it is. Grantaire will always be what he is, or less than that as the years erase more and more of him until only his instincts and emotional responses are left, tangled around a few triggers he won’t be able to remember the cause of. And Enjolras breathes. He is constantly growing, moving on, moving away. They’re sliding in opposite directions, and trying to find a middle ground between them is a fool’s endeavour.

Grantaire’s resolutions are cracking by the next night, when Enjolras comes home with a bottle of wine and leaves the whole thing out for him. The day after, Enjolras is in the middle of reading something when he puts his pens down and leaves the apartment. Grantaire presses himself to the crack of the door and hears him crying, and the guilt weighs him down, anchoring him to the floor for Enjolras to step through when he comes back in.

Was he always so weak? Was he always so easily swayed?

Whether it was so when he lived, it’s the way he is now. On the third night, a day before Halloween, Grantaire floats down behind where Enjolras is sitting on the sofa, and warms himself as much as he can before pressing himself to Enjolras’ back.

Enjolras sucks in a sharp breath, his body going still as Grantaire moulds himself to the shape of his spine, tucks what might be his face against the back of Enjolras’ neck. Enjolras’ breath shudders out of him as he speaks. “Grantaire?”

Grantaire squeezes, as much as he can, and Enjolras’ head droops forward, his eyes falling shut. “Hi. I missed you.” Grantaire touches his hair with what could be fingers. It’s difficult to push himself into human shapes. “Does this…will you answer with the lights?” Grantaire can make the screen of Enjolras’ laptop brighten from where he is, and does so. Enjolras’ smile is a reward for his efforts.

“Will you go away again if I ask about Halloween?” Enjolras asks quietly. Grantaire dims the screen, and he lets out a relieved breath. “Okay. Okay – you’ve come back, so does that mean you’ll…that you’re okay with maybe manifesting on Halloween?”

Grantaire hesitates, then brightens the screen. If it will make Enjolras happy, he’ll do it. He could try to hide his face somehow, but he doesn’t know whether that will be possible. He’s not a powerful ghost.

Enjolras smiles, and pulls one of the sofa cushions against his chest, squeezing it. “I wish I could hug you,” he says, barely whispering.

Grantaire runs maybe-fingers through his hair and wishes he could hug him too.

Halloween is a public holiday, the same as Christmas and New Year, so Enjolras has the day off. He leaves early to get food and drink – sweet cakes are sold especially to help the dead manifest, and of course Grantaire will consume any alcohol Enjolras brings him – and even a few big batteries to help the process along. If Enjolras had any personal belongings of Grantaire’s, they would be laid out as well, but Grantaire’s been dead for over a decade. There’s nothing of him left. Even the apartment has changed completely since he occupied it.

Enjolras places everything on the coffee table, his nerves colouring the air around him. Grantaire floats down on the other side of the table and steels himself. He’s never tried manifesting before. He wonders if he’ll be able to feel anything. He’s been incorporeal for so long that he’s forgotten what physical sensations feel like.

His nervousness cools the air, and Enjolras shivers. “Are you okay?”

Grantaire would sigh. The lampshade above them swings a little in a phantom breeze. Enjolras bites his lip, then smiles. “You don’t want me to look?”

Perfect. Grantaire’s enthusiastic reply switches on every light nearby, and Enjolras laughs and gets up, going to stand behind the sofa. “Take your time, I guess.”

It is less daunting without Enjolras’ eyes searching for where he might be, and Grantaire brushes the edges of himself over one of the cakes. The sugar rush fizzes through him, and in seconds he’s drained them, and the batteries too. He saves the wine for last, and he only realises after he’s lifted the bottle that he’s _lifted the bottle_. With his _hand_.

The hand is barely visible, completely transparent with no colour to speak of, but it’s there. Grantaire puts the bottle down and studies it, and studies its twin as well. He’d forgotten what it’s like to have hands.

Behind the sofa, Enjolras tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and Grantaire reaches for the bottle again. Would he be able to see himself in a mirror now? He stands as he drinks and looks down at himself after he’s drained the bottle (in a ghost sense – the wine is still there, but it’s no longer really wine). He’s wearing clothes, he thinks. Trousers and a t-shirt, or maybe they’re pyjamas? Are these the clothes he died in? Was he always this pudgy? The lights flicker and go out as he shrinks against the wall and tries to vanish again, to float away.

Manifestation has chained him here. He’s anchored to the ground, heavy and slow and huge. This was a terrible idea. He can’t even hide – there’s nowhere to go.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras turns his head a little. “Are you ready?”

 _No_ , Grantaire tries to say, but nothing comes out. That figures – he’d always been a loudmouth in life. It’s probably for the best that he’s been deprived of his ability to babble incessantly.

Enjolras turns and Grantaire remembers too late that he could turn away or cover his face with his hands. But Enjolras sees, and his eyes widen, lips parting. Grantaire takes a step back (feels the carpet under his bare foot, gravity finally regaining its purchase on him) and ducks his head. Had he any blood, he’s sure he’d be flushing right now.

“It’s you,” Enjolras breathes, coming round to the other side of the sofa. “It’s you, isn’t it? Grantaire?”

Grantaire nods, looking down. Enjolras stumbles on his way round the coffee table, and this close Grantaire can’t avoid him. Their eyes meet, and Enjolras breaks into a huge smile. “Grantaire?”

He’s not disappointed. Or at least, he doesn’t look it. Gravity’s pull seems to lessen, and Grantaire nods. _Enjolras_ , he tries to say. There’s the barest sound, less than a whisper, but Enjolras practically glows, hugging himself.

“Hi,” he whispers. “I’ve never seen you before. Sorry, I’m just stating the obvious, I’m…screwing this up, I’ve been thinking about this for ages and now my mind’s gone completely blank. If you can, please interrupt me.”

Unbelievably, Grantaire’s smiling. He can’t see himself, so maybe he just looks better than he used to? Maybe Enjolras is projecting. Who knows? He wasn’t a ghost expert when he was alive, and being dead hasn’t exactly increased his knowledge beyond what he’s experienced, which isn’t much.

“Can you talk?” Enjolras asks.

 _I don’t know_. Grantaire sees Enjolras grin, so he must be getting audible now, though he still can’t hear more than a whisper. 

“Why didn’t you want to do this?” Enjolras asks, eyes roving over him. Strangely, it doesn’t make Grantaire want to hide the way such scrutiny usually would.

Grantaire shrugs, glancing away. He hasn’t done that for over a decade, and it’s already done by the time he realises and smiles, looking down at his hands again. Enjolras’ hand jerks, but then he steps back and looks at the sofa. “Can you sit down?”

Grantaire steps over the coffee table and tries, laughing when the cushions support him. It feels different to the way it normally does. All surfaces feel basically the same as a ghost – resistance with a giving edge easily passed through with a little effort. Enjolras sits next to him, pulling his legs up to face him completely, and Grantaire copies him, staring. Enjolras has never really looked at him before. He looks around the room while Grantaire responds to what he says, or at the lights or laptop. Like this, he’s looking at Grantaire for the first time.

“I hope I don’t accidently end up interrogating you,” he says quietly, smiling. “I’ve just wanted to talk to you for so long.”

 _You have?_ Grantaire’s lips haven’t been moving, he realises too late. He hasn’t had a mouth to speak with for so long, he’s been forgetting to use it.

Enjolras beams. “You don’t sound anything like what I imagined. It’s good!” he adds when Grantaire looks down. “I like it. It suits you.”

Grantaire has no idea what to say to that. He tries to flicker the lights, and when it doesn’t work he looks at them in alarm. Enjolras leans forward. “Are you okay?”

 _I feel_ – Grantaire shakes his head, touches his lips, tries again. “ _I feel solid._ ” It’s still faint, but it’s a voice. He grins, and Enjolras smiles back, wondering.

“Can I…I have so many questions…”

Grantaire nods, and Enjolras is _off_. They talk for hours, and Grantaire has to consume more of Enjolras’ food to stay as he is. Grantaire tells him about being a ghost, about the stronger emotional responses, the slow loss of memory, the limited control over things like temperature and electricity. Enjolras tells him about himself in return, telling Grantaire about the world beyond their apartment. He’s picked up bits and pieces from Enjolras’ meetings, but it’s difficult to concentrate on so many people at once, so he usually lets it wash over him while he hovers above them or hides under the sofa to stay close.

They try to imagine what it would be like if he was really one of them. Grantaire thinks he would be closest to Bahorel and Bossuet and Joly. “ _I’d just annoy you_ ,” he tells Enjolras. “ _I’d drink too much and make fun of you_.”

“Why?” Enjolras frowns.

“ _It’s what I do_.” Grantaire looks at the bottle of wine on the table. “ _Even death doesn’t break patterns, I suppose_.”

“You died of alcohol poisoning,” Enjolras says quietly. “Why do you like offerings of wine if it’s what killed you?”

Grantaire looks down, fingers twisting together in his lap. He’d forgotten all his fidgeting habits, but having the shade of a body has brought them all back. It’s almost comforting to know that some things won’t go away. “ _I’ve always liked best the things that’ll hurt me the most_.” He looks at Enjolras, and they both know what he means.

 

Midnight approaches, and Enjolras wants to cling to every second he has left with Grantaire. There’s still so much he wants to ask, but some of it seems invasive, some inappropriate, and right now they’re close enough to touch and he can’t stop thinking about that. Grantaire can’t affect the lights or anything like this, but his moods seep out of him and into the air, there for Enjolras to feel. He’s longing for something, but whether it’s just to stay manifested or for something else, Enjolras doesn’t know.

“ _This is a stupid idea, you know_ ,” Grantaire tells him. His ghost is a pessimist, cynical and dry, and Enjolras had been surprised at first, then intrigued. Now he thinks maybe they complement each other, that maybe they could work. Of course Grantaire thinks the opposite.

He plays the innocent, tilts his head and asks, “What is?” The look Grantaire gives him is so unimpressed that Enjolras has to laugh. Every expression Grantaire makes delights him. He’s not handsome by any standards, but he’s so expressive. He must have been funny when he was alive, the class comedian. He’d get on so well with Joly and Bossuet, and Courfeyrac and Musichetta, and all of them. Remembering that he’ll never really be part of their group hurts too much to think about, so Enjolras tries to ignore it.

“ _You know what_.” Grantaire can’t seem to help smiling whenever Enjolras does. “ _Anything between the dead and living. It won’t work. I know you’re thinking about it._ ” He shakes his head, smile fading, and Enjolras scoots forward so their knees are almost touching.

“I don’t care.” He hesitates, then lifts his hand and lowers it slowly to touch his fingertips to Grantaire’s knee. He feels phantom fabric, cool and not-quite there. A firmer touch and he’d pass right through. “Can you feel this?” he asks, looking at Grantaire.

He’s staring at Enjolras’ hand, and nods, teeth sunk hard into his bottom lip. “ _You deserve better than me_ ,” he says. His voice echoes, faint and distant, and Enjolras lifts his hand to hold it out, palm-up.

“There isn’t anyone I know better than you.”

“ _Bullshit_.” Grantaire doesn’t look away from his hand though, and his own flexes.

“There isn’t anyone else I want.”

“ _I’m not even solid_ ,” Grantaire whispers.

“I don’t care.”

“ _You’ll get sick of me_.”

“I’ve been here almost a year. I haven’t gotten sick of you yet, and I won’t in the future.”

“ _You’ll change!_ ” Grantaire cries. “ _You’re alive, you’ll keep living and getting older. It won’t work_.”

Enjolras doesn’t move his hand. “Can we try anyway?” _Be brave_ , he wants to beg. _Trust me_. He waits, patient as he can manage while Grantaire agonises.

“ _This is such a bad idea_ ,” he murmurs.

“I’m great at bad ideas.”

Finally, Grantaire lifts his hand. Enjolras feels it the moment they touch, skin to whatever Grantaire’s outline is made of. He’s cool where Enjolras is warm, his hand completely transparent as it settles over Enjolras’ palm. He tries to curl their fingers together, but presses too hard by accident and pushes his fingers through Grantaire’s completely. He jerks his hand back, horrified. “Sorry! I’m sorry, are you okay?”

Grantaire laughs at him, and leans forward to touch his fingers to Enjolras’ jaw. “ _It doesn’t hurt, I’m fine_.”

They have to be careful. Just a little too much pressure sends Enjolras’ living skin straight through the barriers of Grantaire’s temporary body. He ends up lying back on the sofa with Grantaire over him, his kisses lighter than the brush of paper against his skin. They can’t kiss properly, can’t touch with any strength. It’s frustrating, an endless tease, and Enjolras wishes so hard he aches with it that Grantaire was solid enough to pull close. He’d be heavy, solid, hair soft against Enjolras’ skin. It’s impossible to get off with so little physical stimulation, and Grantaire laughs in his ear, soft and echoing.

_“You’re blushing.”_

“I’m going to die,” Enjolras tells him frankly, and Grantaire laughs again.

_“I’ll wait for you.”_

For some reason, it makes Enjolras laugh as well, the two of them giggling like teenagers. After a while, Grantaire props himself up on Enjolras’ chest and gazes down at him. Were he solid, the weight of his elbows would be painful. As it is, Enjolras could close his eyes and almost feel like he was alone. “ _I’ve never done this sober before_ ,” Grantaire admits.

Enjolras brushes the tip of his nose down Grantaire’s cheek, very careful not to push through. “Why not?”

“ _Scared, I suppose. I didn’t want to be the way I was_.”

“You don’t mind now?”

“ _Being dead puts it in perspective_.” Grantaire smiles. “ _There are some advantages to this – what could anyone do or say to me now?_ ”

“I love you.” It’s impulsive, ridiculous, Enjolras’ feelings hijacking his brain, but the split second of terror after he says it fades when Grantaire seems to become brighter in front of him. His teeth bite into his lower lip, making the smile he tries to hold back as crooked as it is happy. No one’s ever said it to him before like this, Enjolras understands suddenly, Grantaire’s emotions rippling out into him.

“ _You’re an idiot_ ,” Grantaire tells him, fingers spreading like cool air against Enjolras’ neck and jaw.

“So I’ve been told.” Enjolras brushes a hand down the curve of Grantaire’s back, light and careful, careful. “It’s still true.”

“ _This is never going to work_.” Grantaire ducks his head, phantom curls smooth and cold on Enjolras’ cheek, what might be a kiss pressed to his neck. “ _You know this is a doomed endeavour_.”

“I’ve never been any good at accepting defeat.” Enjolras wishes he could slide his hands under Grantaire’s shirt and touch the skin of his back and sides, but any attempt to pull or pluck at the manifested material would be futile – his fingers would find no purchase. “I love you.”

Grantaire makes a soft noise into his neck, and Enjolras closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, he’s alone. He jerks upright, looking around frantically. “Grantaire? Grantaire, where did –” The lights flicker, and Enjolras thinks to look at his watch, his shoulders slumping when he sees the time. “Oh…”

Midnight has come and gone, and he won’t get to see Grantaire again for another year. The lights dim, Grantaire matching his mood, and Enjolras covers his face with a hand for a second. “It could be worse,” he says out loud, to himself as much as to Grantaire. “Elizabeth Swann only got to see Will Turner once every ten years.”

The screen of his laptop flickers to life, and he looks as a Word document opens on its own. _At least they could touch each other when they did meet_ , Grantaire writes, and Enjolras grins. 

“I knew you could type more than comments on my writing! Which proves my rebuttal, actually – at least we can talk to each other. They had no contact at all.”

_I can’t always. Writing’s harder than you think. I think I’m just strong right now because I’ve still got some Halloween energy._

“We’ll manage,” Enjolras says firmly. People do have relationships with ghosts. Just because society generally disapproves doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It can happen. It can work.

In the morning, his laptop is still on, the words _I love you too_ open on the screen. Enjolras floats to work on a cloud.

 

They continue mostly the same as before. Grantaire can’t communicate much beyond indicating yes and no in response to Enjolras’ questions, but he spends his days working on his physical presence to the point that he can touch Enjolras a little better. It’s still less than either of them want, but it’s better than nothing.

He still worries he’s holding Enjolras back, holding him static when he should be in motion, but when he expresses this via the laptop (he gets exhausted if he types for too long, but little bursts are manageable), Enjolras just snorts. “Because I had such a sparkling love life before,” he says dryly. “I’m sure you noticed all the dates I went on, and all the people I brought back here.”

Grantaire responds with the _:P_ that deserves, and Enjolras grins.

“I like _you_. I’ve never really been interested in many people before, and you’re not a distraction the way someone else might be. That sounded kind of cold,” he adds, frowning. “I just meant…you know, I like you better than anyone else I’ve met. I like us the way we are. I’m happier than I was without you,” he settles on, and smiles.

Grantaire brushes maybe-fingers through his hair, and Enjolras tilts his head back and hums, eyes falling closed.

The first time he tries to help get Enjolras off is a strange experience for him. Enjolras seems to enjoy it enough for both of them though, which is good enough for Grantaire. He supposes he must have had a sex drive when he was alive, but he has no memory of what it felt like, and there’s no remnant of it now. There’s something beautiful in helping Enjolras take himself apart though. He can’t do everything himself – he hasn’t got the physical presence – but he learns what to do to help.

It’s best when Enjolras is naked, when Grantaire has access to as much of his skin as possible. Keeping himself warm enough not to make Enjolras shiver takes effort, but it’s worth it. Enjolras on his back is best, fist loose around his cock, head thrown back with his other hand clenched in the duvet. Grantaire takes his time teasing, phantom fingers and hands dancing over Enjolras’ chest, stomach, thighs, far more than he had while he lived, multiple limbs sliding against Enjolras’ skin. Enjolras moans, hips jerking, and Grantaire imagines himself with teeth and nails. Sometimes it works, and he can startle a delicious whine from Enjolras with a pinch or a scratch or a bite. Silent when he’s alone, when Grantaire helps Enjolras makes glorious noises.

It takes time for Grantaire to work past his own shyness and slide between Enjolras’ legs. They spread at the slightest provocation, and Enjolras rolls onto his side and gasps as Grantaire concentrates, focuses on becoming corporeal enough to push in a little. He topped when he lived, if he’s remembering right, and Enjolras seems more than okay with being on the receiving end of attention like this if his high-pitched moans are anything to go by.

Grantaire has advantages no living person would. He can have as many ‘hands’ as he likes in as many places as he can concentrate on, and Enjolras’ desperation spurs him on, motivates him to push himself. When Enjolras sobs his name, whimpers a plea, Grantaire finds energy he didn’t know he possessed and for a shining moment practically presses Enjolras down into the mattress. Enjolras doesn’t even try to stifle his shout as he comes, shuddering and gasping as it passes.

Such exertion takes Grantaire almost a week to recover from – Enjolras makes his own coffee in the mornings and cleans up after himself – but Enjolras thanks him with a bottle of wine and plenty of spoken gratitude that warms Grantaire to the core.

He did well. He made Enjolras happy. _He_ did that, no one else. They don’t do it often, maybe once or twice a month, and they make each other happy in other ways as well. Enjolras gets better at picking up Grantaire’s moods and emotions, and tells people who don’t know or wouldn’t understand that he’s in a long-distance relationship. 

 _Very long distance_ , Grantaire types when Enjolras tells him, and Enjolras laughs.

The meetings continue, and Grantaire hides as usual, but tries to listen more. The only problem with that is that the more he listens, the more worried he becomes. He hadn’t understood why they’d been banned from congregating in public spaces before, but now he understands. There are laws against the things they talk about. It wasn’t as bad when Grantaire was alive, but now the world beyond their apartment is harsher, he gathers. Crueller, more oppressive, harder on the unlucky and unfortunate.

Enjolras and his friends aren’t gentle protesters. They’re radical, and they’re angry, and well-connected to some even more illegal groups. Talk turns often to rebellion and revolution and a coup d’état, and Grantaire worries for them all, but none more than Enjolras, who feels the wrongs of the country so deeply and rages against the injustices that are so rife.

The man he loves is cruel and intolerant in his own way, Grantaire learns. He has seen so much pain that he has no room in his heart for mercy for anyone who has perpetuated or ignored it. Courfeyrac mentions a man who abandoned his family, but Enjolras defends him because of the work he did for the populace in general. Enjolras sees the big picture, and if Grantaire didn’t know him so well, he would think he was the worst of all of them, turned half savage by the establishment he hates.

But Enjolras loves too deeply. From the outside, perhaps Grantaire wouldn’t understand, but he sees the way Enjolras watches his friends and checks on every single one of them. If it came to a choice between his friends and his revolution, Enjolras would choose his friends. Given the least encouragement, he can ramble to Grantaire about them for hours, which is incredibly endearing.

But it will never come to a choice between his friends and his revolution for Enjolras, because they’re all as devoted as he is. Grantaire listens to their meetings, and when they talk of gathering arms and building barricades, putting forward ideas of violence instead of peace, Grantaire can’t help the way he reacts. The temperature drops and the curtains twitch and sway, the lights flicker and the TV speakers crackle.

Enjolras snaps at him sometimes afterwards, and Grantaire either hides or ups the ante in petty revenge, making up for his inability to voice his arguments. The water runs cold when Enjolras needs it hot, the TV and laptop switch on and off to inconvenience him, the fruit rots where it sits.

Most of the time they make up within a couple of days. But sometimes it lasts longer than that.

 

Enjolras goes to Combeferre’s after work to shower instead of going home. “Grantaire’s upset with you?” Combeferre guesses when he lets Enjolras in. Enjolras gives him a dark look in reply, and Combeferre sighs. “This isn’t healthy, Enjolras.”

“It’ll only be unhealthy if I catch a cold from having cold showers,” Enjolras says, a little sharper than intended. Whether they’re arguing or not, he still loves Grantaire. He won’t let anyone, even Combeferre, criticise his relationship choices. Combeferre raises his eyebrows, and he sighs. “It’d be different if he could talk a little more. He’d probably shout instead of pulling these tricks, but he’s got no other way to get his point across, that’s all. It’s not malicious or anything.”

“You can’t deny you’ve been arguing more though,” Combeferre says. He indicates the coffee pot and gives Enjolras a questioning look, but Enjolras shakes his head.

“I’m fine. And we’re fine, really. He’s just scared for us, that’s all.”

“Scared of what?” Combeferre perches on the edge of the counter, long legs dangling. “If you die, you’ll be closer than ever.”

Enjolras bites back a smile and sighs. By unspoken agreement, there are a few topics he and Grantaire simply don’t discuss. His potential death is one of them. “It’s complicated.”

“Wouldn’t you stay for him?” Combeferre doesn’t tiptoe around delicate subjects like this. It’s one of the reasons Enjolras loves him so much.

“I’d try,” he says softly. “I think.”

“You only think?”

“I don’t want to be a ghost.” He leans against the wall and sighs, scratching his head. His hair is greasy – he’s been forgoing showers for the last couple of days because he has no wish to be suddenly doused in icy water. Grantaire’s timing is impeccable, always just as Enjolras has put shampoo in. If he wants to get it out again he has to do it in freezing water, and it’s a horrible experience. “Who wants to be a ghost?”

“Why is Grantaire a ghost?” Combeferre asks plainly. “What made him stay?”

“Fear, I think, same as most. We haven’t exactly talked about it much.”

“Maybe you should.” 

“Maybe. Maybe at Halloween” It seems such a rude thing to ask though. Certainly not something to ask while they’re arguing.

He uses Combeferre’s shower and goes home. Grantaire keeps up his campaign of irritation until Enjolras apologises. “I don’t want to fight,” he tells the room. For another few days, they’re back to normal. Enjolras reads aloud, grinning at Grantaire’s responses. Grantaire tidies, keeps the water hot, combs Enjolras’ hair with invisible fingers as he goes to sleep. Sure, one of them might be a ghost, but they’re still happy together. They’re still in love.

Inevitably, it’s that week’s meeting that sends them spiralling again. The group’s discussion turns to practical matters, to the upcoming election that the prime minister will certainly cheat at, to potential protests and rallying points and their willingness to martyr themselves if need be. It’s that last part that makes Grantaire turn out the lights. Every time Enjolras tries to turn them back on, Grantaire turns them out again, and the meeting has to be cut short.

“I could fucking strangle you sometimes!” Enjolras snarls afterwards. Of course the lights worked normally again as soon as the others left. “We have work to do! There’s no time for sentimentality or your bullshit tricks!” Grantaire makes him think sometimes of the people who would rather close their eyes to the truth than work towards changing things for the better. In a way, people like that are worse than the ones actively perpetrating the evil.

Grantaire rattles the draws and Enjolras clenches his fists and resists the urge to scream. “Just because nothing will ever change for you doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change for other people!” he says instead, glaring at the walls. It’s infuriating to have nothing corporeal to focus his anger on. Grantaire upends the bin and sends the papers Enjolras had foolishly not weighted down scattering across the whole room with a sudden breeze.

It’ll take ages to sort them again, and Enjolras just wants to go to bed in peace. But there’s no peace in this apartment with Grantaire here. They can’t go in separate rooms, and they can’t shout at each other, and they can’t _function_ when they’re like this. He could cry, he’s so frustrated. “Screw you!” he shouts, trembling and furious. “You fucking coward!”

The coffee pot he filled for everyone tips over, coffee spilling out across the kitchen counter and flowing onto the floor, a huge brown puddle spreading across the lino. Enjolras cries out, wordless rage bursting raw from his throat.

 “You’re just doing that because you know it’s true!” he shouts, tears in his eyes. “Everyone knows it! Only cowards like you linger after death!”

There’s a burst of wind, a screaming howl that erupts from the centre of the room. Everything that had been on the surfaces is flung against the walls, glasses shattering and mugs smashing to pieces. It’s over as soon as it happened, and Enjolras is left in silence, his hands falling slowly from where he’d jerked them up to protect his face. The apartment feels empty in a way it never has. There are shards of glass and china on the floor, coffee and tea dripping down the walls, and Grantaire is gone.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras tries, with no response. For less than a second, he’s vindictive. Worry replaces it immediately, and he checks all of Grantaire’s usual haunts to try and find him. His bedside table drawer, under the sofa, the high corners of the rooms, inside the bathroom cabinet. They yield nothing, and Enjolras cleans up the mess in silence, scared and fighting back tears of an entirely different kind.

Grantaire isn’t there the next day, not even to play his usual tricks. Enjolras’ shower water is hot, the lights work fine, his keys are where he left them. It’s like Grantaire has completely vanished. Enjolras worries all day, and pours a glass of wine that night before he goes to bed. When he comes into the kitchen the next morning to find it still full of flavour, he doesn’t know what to do.

That day, he buys Grantaire a bottle of whisky as well as another bottle of wine. He leaves both out overnight, but they’re both untouched by ghostly energy in the morning. He’s home all day with no one to talk to, and fear is starting to replace the worry by now. He reads out loud until his voice is hoarse, but it feels like he’s reading to an empty room this time, while it never had before.

He’s alone. By the third day, he knows Grantaire has left him, and he whispers apologies as he lies in bed, trying to go to sleep without crying. It doesn’t work, and surely if anything brought Grantaire out of hiding it would be that, but there’s nothing. Despair chokes Enjolras’ throat, keeps him in bed the next morning when he would usually be up and working.

How many people find happiness like they had? How many idiots throw it away like he has?

Too proud and ashamed to go to his friends, he tries to focus on work and not how appallingly lonely he is, truly alone in the apartment for the first time since he moved in. Halloween is in two weeks, and he’d had plans…all useless now. All for nothing. And it’s all his fault.

 

Grantaire comes back to himself five days after lashing out, a little puddle of dizzy, confused energy reforming where his sofa had been twelve or so years ago. In the new layout, he’s on the floor between a different sofa and an armchair. Some things he understands and remembers: he’s a ghost, has been for a long time, this apartment has changed since he occupied it, he likes to drink, he died because he liked to drink, he…there’s…someone else?

Grantaire swirls, agitated, anxious, floats up a little and rests on the arm of the new sofa. Who lives here now? He can’t remember. It’s dusky outside, but whether it’s early or late he doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember. His strength is returning, his fear making itself known in little gusts of wind and a sharp drop in temperature. There’s so much he can’t remember, so many unanswered questions, so many things he’s lost never to regain. His panic sets the objects around him rattling, jumping in place like chattering teeth.

It’s then that the bedroom door bursts open and a beautiful young man stumbles into the living room, blonde hair a tangled mane, beautiful eyes wide as he looks around. “Grantaire?”

 _Enjolras_ , Grantaire remembers, and could cry from the relief as the memories come flooding back. He streams across the room and presses himself to his love’s chest, forcing himself to be warm so as not to make Enjolras shiver. Enjolras falls against the doorframe and slides down to the floor, hand over his mouth as his eyes fill with tears.

“I thought you were gone,” he manages to say, voice cracking.

 _Never_ , Grantaire wishes he could say, and imagines himself with a living person’s shape and weight. It’s only partially successful, but he’s able to wipe Enjolras’ tears sideways if not completely away and press himself closer, moulding to Enjolras’ body the way another person would never be able to do.

Come Halloween, Grantaire manifests at midnight, as soon as he can, and he and Enjolras spend all twenty-four glorious hours together, talking and talking and talking. Grantaire’s violent outburst has increased his strength, which is both good and bad. This time, his manifested form has more solidity to it. He and Enjolras can kiss, they can almost hug. He lies against Enjolras’ chest as they talk to each other, and Enjolras kisses any part of Grantaire he can reach. He’s never felt so loved.

But the bad part keeps scaring him. The reason boggarts and stronger ghosts are as strong as they are is because they’ve lost everything that rooted them to the living plane. Grantaire tells Enjolras about his temporary loss of memory after he came back to consciousness, and the things he’s lost forever – he doesn’t remember his parents at all now. He has a vague feeling that this might be a blessing in disguise, but it’s still intensely unsettling. His already-faint memories of childhood have faded as well, many gone forever. He’s losing parts of himself, and it’s terrifying. Just a few more outbursts like the one Enjolras provoked could destroy him forever.

What if he forgets everything about Enjolras except their arguments? What if he becomes a malevolent spirit, lashing out out of confusion and fear and anger? What if a shade has to be called to exorcise him?

“I won’t let that happen,” Enjolras promises, fierce and fixed. His arms are still too heavy for Grantaire’s barely-there body to support them, but he can run his fingers through Grantaire’s hair if he’s careful, and he does that instead of hugging him the way Grantaire can tell he wants to. “We’ll still get pissed at each other, sure, but no more arguments like that. I’ll never say anything like that ever again.” He kisses Grantaire’s temple. “I love you.”

He’s apologised so many times that Grantaire’s lost count, and he turns his head to kiss Enjolras properly. At least he can do that now, even if his tongue goes _through_ Enjolras’ if they’re not concentrating, which is a weird feeling for both of them.

They agree that it’s for the best not to have any more meetings at their apartment any more. They scare Grantaire too much, and Enjolras refuses to risk any further memory loss for him. Social gatherings are still fine, and Grantaire looks forward to those. It’s only because he cares so much for the others that he gets as agitated as he does.

Enjolras doesn’t make it to midnight, falling asleep around ten-thirty. Grantaire lies next to him on the bed, touching him simply because he can. Ghosts don’t sleep. They can slumber, sort of, but not sleep. Not dream. At midnight Grantaire’s manifested body melts away, Cinderella syndrome sending him back to the limbo of incorporeal existence. Enjolras wakes up to a boiled kettle and smiles as he thanks the boyfriend he can’t see, who can’t reply with anything more than a gentle touch and a brief brightening of the lights.

Where they’d argued before, they are hushed now. Enjolras spends long hours away at other places, meeting with his friends and his allies. He brings back stacks of pamphlets, and he goes over to Combeferre’s for entire days to draft more with him and Courfeyrac. Bahorel sends emails and texts at all hours of the day and night, his connections to other groups similar to theirs sending information back and forth, creating a network between all of them.

Grantaire sees and hears it all, but holds his peace and keeps his temper cool. When his fear threatens to end in shredded cushions and smashed crockery, he hides in the bedside table drawer and waits until he feels calm again. Usually that means waiting until Enjolras comes back from wherever he’s gone. The longer he leaves for, the more agitated Grantaire becomes. Enjolras doesn’t know how many times he’s almost come back to a wrecked apartment, and Grantaire won’t tell him.

The death comes out of nowhere. Some politician who’s been ill for a while, but dies suddenly. Enjolras leaves for the funeral, promises to return soon on his lips, and he doesn’t come back. When night comes, Grantaire loses himself and blows every bulb in the apartment, smashes the mirrors and hurls the clock across the room.

Enjolras will be furious when he returns, and apologetic, and Grantaire hides in the bedside table drawer and waits, waits, forces himself to wait and keep waiting and keep waiting. There’s no respite in sleep for the likes of him. Dawn comes, passes, turns to a cold, sunny day. Grantaire tries to stay calm, but he has to do something. He breaks every plate one by one in the cupboard, moving down until they’re all in pieces. Then he moves onto the cups, and the glasses, and the cutlery. The metal curls and twists, the unnatural shapes a reflection of Grantaire’s terror. Enjolras isn’t back by nightfall, and Grantaire becomes a whirlwind.

The drawers are torn from their places, cupboard doors ripped from their hinges. He tears the furniture to pieces, destroys the TV, even breaks Enjolras’ laptop. He’s going to be so angry, but Grantaire is so scared he can’t stop. The carpets are pulled up from the floorboards and shredded, the pictures on the walls smashed, even the windows are blown out. It rains that night, and Grantaire’s misery increases because this mess is all his fault.

Enjolras will exorcise him for sure this time. If he doesn’t, the landlady certainly will.

Grantaire sinks into the cracks between Enjolras’ laptop keyboard and hides, wishing for Enjolras to come back. He can’t think about what it means that he hasn’t come back yet.

Dawn comes again, red this time, and Enjolras is still gone, and somehow Grantaire knows he’s dead. Not arrested or detained or held up somewhere. He’s dead, and he hasn’t come for Grantaire. He’s moved on, and left Grantaire behind. The realisation is agony, and Grantaire’s anguish shorts out the power for the whole building.

He’ll never see Enjolras again – will he even remember him in a year’s time? Two? Five? Ten? He would rather lose all his memories of his life than lose his memories of Enjolras. Though that would hardly be a decent trade. Enjolras is the best part of his existence, living and dead. The question is irrelevant in any case, because he’s definitely getting exorcised now. Grantaire hopes for sooner rather than later, the sorry remains of his consciousness blasted into nothing by a shade.

He’s still hiding between the cracks of the keyboard when someone else comes into the apartment.

_Grantaire?_

Grantaire rises up and out, and Enjolras is there, but he’s not…

 _You’re dead_ , Grantaire realises. Enjolras is disembodied like him, but as he watches, the shimmering in the air that has all of what makes Enjolras Enjolras without his physical body reforms to take the shape he’s used to, as if it’s Grantaire seeing him that makes him change. _You came_ , Grantaire realises, and hurls himself forward. By the time he collides with Enjolras, he’s taken his living shape as well. Perhaps they take the shapes the other expects to see.

No matter their shapes, they’re still incorporeal, and instead of pressing against each other as two living people would, they sink into each other and contract, holding each other in a way they never have before. Enjolras can see everything in him, or what little remains, and Grantaire can see everything in Enjolras.

He sees everything that has happened to Enjolras, everything he felt while he lived, his love for his friends, for Grantaire, the defiance he pretended in the moment of his death to cover his fear. Everything is there, and for a long time they stay together like that. The day is half done by the time they separate.

 _You made a real mess_ , Enjolras tells him, looking around. Grantaire squirms, but Enjolras just smiles. _It’s not like it matters now._

 _I freaked out_. Grantaire curls close, and Enjolras holds him there. With the slightest effort, they can feel solid to each other. They’re on the same plane now. _I thought you weren’t coming back_.

 _Idiot_. Enjolras kisses the top of his head. They’re floating, both of them shining together. _I came to get you_.

 _Get me?_ Grantaire understands before he’s even finished – Enjolras can still move on. Even after death, he’s moving. _I can go with you?_ he asks, not allowing himself to hope.

 _I’m taking you with me_. Pillar of fire, Enjolras. Shining star, righteous demigod. The universe would bend at his will, reshape at his wish. Grantaire’s fear, so strong when he first died, so strong he doesn’t even remember if he had a choice of staying or going back, makes one last attempt to keep him where he is.

_Are you sure?_

Enjolras wraps himself around him, holds him as close as he can while still remaining a separate entity. _Come with me_.

Grantaire’s fizzing, spinning, the world around them brightening, brightening. Enjolras laughs, and Grantaire is leaving with him, they’re going together, they won’t be trapped in a place where they’ll lose their memories and turn into malevolent spirits. Enjolras holds him tight and the world disappears, and everything is effervescent bliss.

**Author's Note:**

> If you see mistakes, please point them out! And, um. Sorry for making it sorta sad? Not that you thought a fic tagged 'major character death' was ever going to be overly cheery, I'm sure.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please consider [buying me a coffee!](https://ko-fi.com/A221HQ9) <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] You Don't Need Treats, You Don't Need Tricks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436376) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton), [SomethingIncorporeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal)




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